A critique of critique, or what may be wrong with academia

Kant exemplifies, and thereby verifies, the following claim: modernity is an age of critique. In what sense is “critique” characteristic of this age? There can be no doubt that negation is not a modern invention. To say “no” and, moreover, to show or explain why “no” must be said in this or that circumstance is an act for which humanity has had the competence since time immemorial. But to say “no” to the whole, to all things, and with reasons for doing so? Even this radical negation finds a certain kind of precedent in the ancient words of Qoheleth. And yet, it is the modern epoch that one calls “critical.”

Why? Because there are hardly grounds any longer on which to say “yes” and, therefore, to say “no” in a believable, trustworthy way. These grounds have been invalidated by a style of critique which one recognizes as “transcendental,” i.e., as implicating consciousness as such. Because they must be doubted (Descartes), or at least objectified (Kant and, maybe, Husserl), the bases for our thought and action have been thoroughly jeopardized as bases. The explicitly transcendental project was, of course, far too naive. It, too, has been invalidated by a sense that every act of consciousness–if one can even speak this way anymore–is localized in history, culture, language, power, flesh, environment, etc. The now prevalent judgment against transcendental reason of the Kantian type exhibits a meta-transcendental character. One is obliged to hold that the conditions for the possibility of thinking (like Kant) about the conditions for the possibility of consciousness are universally and necessarily history, culture, language, power, flesh, environment, etc. and, simultaneously, their concealment. In short, to attempt what Kant attempts, one must suffer from illusion or be engaged in some kind of self-deception. Such is the central tenet of critical theory and postmodernity, of various sorts. Its elaboration is always almost (but perhaps not quite) a performative contradiction. In other words, one may very quickly find oneself accused of something very much like the sort of illusion which one imputes to another.

Now, the following analysis may seem exaggerated, but I think there is some truth in it. Having been deeply informed by these traditions, the academy currently finds itself in what might be called “critical condition.” As soon as one begins to speak positively about something; begins to propose an idea; begins to invest in a particular form of life; begins thereby to shift power in this or that direction; begins, in all these ways, to cultivate a philosophy, a theology, a culture, a people, a vision for the future–there are immediately countless meta-transcendental critiques which can and must be made. Implicit in any position will be an infinite debt to a particularizing, destabilizing, and delegitimizing background of uncertainty, violence, chaos, oppression, absurdity, vanity.

The problem is that, when one points this out, or constantly feels the need to point it out, or makes only this sort of remark lest someone else make it about one’s own work (which might happen in any case), all that is empowered is the meta-transcendental critique itself. Everyone is made to circulate its power and to wield it, with the result that everything comes to seem already negated as though by an a priori collective judgment. Everything is potentially illusory. But this means, paradoxically, that everything is affirmed weakly, surreptitiously, obscurely, inconsistently. At least, this is the practical consequence. After all, life must go on; people will believe this or that about the whole of reality and actually seek to live by it; no words of a critical academic will deter this natural mode of human being; and, in any case, the suspension demanded by the current form of the postmodern epoche is not sustainable even for the thinkers themselves, in their own lives. And so everyone is left without anything positive to contemplate and, therefore, with a (perhaps highly cultured) sense of indifference or apathy. Because no one will have the courage to say “yes” to a course of thought which seems promising, fruitful, or edifying, the effective message will be that it matters little what one thinks. Meta-transcendental critique, having become all-powerful, will empower nothing and no one. Worst of all, many will not have been empowered to stand their ground when it is really necessary, precisely at the decisive moment when “no” must be said with one’s full heart, with everything on the line, in order to defend something which we have forgotten how to articulate and which we no longer even attempt to specify.

Hope lies in the attempt to offer something positive, a genuine possibility, to others, however troubled may be its already and inevitably grave preconditions. It seems that the intellectual life, in order to remain worthy of the name, must seek to shed light in this direction. If one can, perhaps, begin to praise God even in the world’s distress, one can perhaps begin to think also through the implications of this praise.

Has this been an argument for uncritical thinking (if there is such a thing)? Let me say, in conclusion: no.

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Although the turn to history, culture, etc. can function as a meta-transcendental critique of transcendental (and other sorts of) arguments; although its significance can therefore be linked to its capacity to bring out the background of uncertainty, violence, etc. of various positive intellectual proposals, a background which one can neglect only by falling into illusion or self-deception; and although it is for these reasons implicated in the current “critical condition” of academia, which I have been trying to analyze; I want, nevertheless, to recognize explicitly that the very same turn to history, culture, etc. can be treated more positively as a recovery of things which are of value, and the question will be how to organize or make sense out of this positive material in such a way that one is empowered to say “yes” to a compelling vision of things and, therefore, “no” to that which must, for good reasons, be resisted. My appeal to praise, at the end, is meant as a suggested point of departure for this necessary work of, as Charles Taylor might say, becoming more articulate about the good.